User blog:Samdudeman120/STAR WARS: One Last Shot 2
He drifted in and out of sleep as the snubfighter gently tumbled through the blackness of space. It had come as no surprise to Sam, as he watched the starlines about swirl overhead. He fully expected the fighter to have broke hyperspace on its own, when the strain became too much. He had not anticipated the amount of damage the stop had done, though. And now with a debris field made up of his own ship he had the sinking feeling he had just broken his promise to Tora. Again. No. Not again. I will come back. I promised. He began a ship-wide diagnostic of all the curcial systems. Life support was good, shields were holding and the hull had not been compromised - much. But that was the only good news. Engines were down, navigation was down, hyperdrive was down, repulsors all but destroyed and the only way he'd be able to get a full repair would be by returning to base. But, if he could return to base he would not really need the repair. Oh, the paradox. He looked about the cockpit. The ship had taken quite the beating, and he had only known it for a week or so. The StormHawk could have taken a hit like this and kept running without blaring a siren. But snubfighters were notoriously less durable than Nubian-CEC hybrids. Not to say that they were bad fighters, but they were nothing in comparison to Sam's personal starship. Out here, floating in dead space, Sam missed nothing more than his trusty old bird. When he closed his eyes he could imagine the cold metal walls and floors, the neatly swept corridors and finely tuned electronics. He could hear the ships main computer talking to the ships log, in a language Sam couldn't learn in a thousand years, and yet somehow understood it. The StormHawk had a mind of its own. Something that to this day her Captain could not understand. Nor did he try to. Perhaps he feared the magic would wear off if he openly questioned it. Or maybe he just loved the mystery of it all. But for all he knew about the StormHawk Captain Riken would never fully understand her, and that is what kept him constantly in love with the old bird. One of four ships in the entire galaxy, and he had one. But now he was trapped in the confines of a ship he hardly knew. He knew X-wings, and knew them well. Tora flew an X-wing, as did Waros when he traveled alone. But this thing was different. As fast as an A-wing - and as well armored as one too, apparently - it was not exactly his area of expertise. Why he couldn't simply use an A-wing he had no idea. Perhaps the Alliance was really looking to send him on another suicide run to take out a massive imperial presence - sometihng only an X-wing could accomplish. Or maybe they wanted him to test a new breed of X-wing to replace all fighters, and nobody was quite foolish enough so they had asked him. Afterall, if it was just recon than why couldn't he fly the StormHawk? Oh, right, because it's not regulation, ''the deck master would say. Really it was because they hated the fact that the StormHawk automatically logged every parsec of it's journey. They either feared Sam to be a turncoat or a fool. Either one he ought to take offense to, but instead found it amusing. He would joke with the other pilots and smugglers about it. Han had told him that that aspect of the Alliance would never change, that they would hold a special hatred to the criminally gifted until the day they needed them again. Sam felt a bitter-sweet joy in knowing that. At least that meant he wouldn't always be a reject. The diagnostics completed, and comfirmed his worse fears: he was dead in the water, and needed to pop an S.O.S. beacon if he was to have any hope of survival. The problem with that was the Empire was still in the system, less than an hours worth of sublight speed away. If anyone responded to the beacon in time it would have been them. On top of that, they were no doubt looking for a highly advanced X-wing starfighter, anyway. And would love to capture its pilot, who managed to take down an Interdictor cruiser singlehandedly. Sam smiled at the thought. They ''must be mad. A steady stream of beeping sounded from the terminal. The ships computer translated the message in aurebesh text. "Are you awake yet?" Sam chuckled. Poor Tricky was awake the whole time. The thought comforted Sam, but brought up some questions, too. "Yeah, Tricky, I'm up. You doing okay?" Another series of beeps. "I'm not dead." "Well, whatever gives you your attitude issues isn't broken, at least." "I fixed that. And also fixed the engines as well as I could." Sam supressed the laughter welling up inside. "Okay, good job. Status report?" "Main thrust drive is online for two of the quad engines. Repulsors are destroyed, and the ion coil is severed." "How bad?" An image display of the coil showed on the terminal screen. "Oh," Sam said, frowning at the perfect cut down the coil. "I think we're in trouble." "Really?" "Yup," he said, ignoring the sassy little droid's tone. "I think I'll have to sacrifice you to make an escape pod." Tricky was silent at first, thinking over the threat. Finally he said "You'll never take me alive." Across the cockpit screen Tricky floated away, flying toward nothingness. Sam couldn't stop the laughter that time, and didn't really want to, either. It felt good to laugh, and to make light of a desperate situation. He suited up, sealing in his helmet, gloves and flightsuit and popped the seal to the hatch. The hiss of air dragged him from the cockpit and into open space. He attatched a tether to the webbing of the pilot's seat and floated out to meet Tricky. "Alright, that's enough, buddy. Come on back here. We gotta get to work." Tricky let out a low, defeated tone. Without the translator Sam had to go off of experience. He understood astromechs pretty well, though, so he didn't really need it. The low tone could be likened to "Oh, okay..." The two got busy with the ship, sealing in all the crucial tares and repairing some scratches and cuts. The engine compartment was completely shot; nothing short of a full factory could get it in top shape again. But with luck and some clever reengineering it would not prove to be a huge problem. Hopefully. Category:Blog posts